Jeremy Paxman’s stubble a reminder of halcyon beardie days

 
Jeremy Paxman sparked a Twitter storm after returning to Newsnight from his summer holiday sporting a full beard
13 August 2013

As Jeremy Paxman’s beard rocked Newsnight, the Londoner recalled the last time whiskered men dared to stride the corridors of the BBC.

Back in 1999, Michael Buerk, then presenting the Nine O’Clock News, returned from a trip to Turkey with a full beard. He hung around the office all day while editors plotted to ask him to remove it.

Buerk, smirking, disappeared at the last minute into the gents’ toilets and returned clean-shaven.

But it was Keith Graves who was a pioneer of BBC reporter beards. Back in the Seventies, the former BBC correspondent and John Humphrys, then in Washington, bet each other $100 that the other wouldn’t dare appear on air with the beards they’d grown during their holidays.

Then Graves was called at the last minute to cover the Spaghetti House siege in Knightsbridge, forgetting his new facial addition.

“The next morning I went to see my editor,” Graves recalled in an article. “He peered at the beard for a few moments then remarked that I’d been so ugly before that the beard made little difference. Since that day, I have never shaved it off.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in